One of America's most favorite treats is an ice cream float. This treat consists of a mixture of carbonated soda pop and a scoop of ice cream. The ice cream is initially at a much lower temperature than the soda pop. Once placed in the soda pop, however, the ice cream begins to melt to create a delicious foamy and syrup-like mixture.
One of the problems with ice cream floats, as parents can attest, is that they can be messy. When the ice cream is scooped into the carbonated drink, a spontaneous fizz or foam is created which inevitably rises faster than any person can sip and thereby spills over the lip of the glass onto the kitchen counter or floor.
A separate problem unrelated to ice cream floats concerns cooling beverages with ice. When the ice is initially deposited into a cup of liquid, the ice begins to melt in the warmer beverage. Over time, the melted ice dilutes the drink and degrades the flavor of the beverage.
One solution to these problems was proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,975,925 to Chambers, which issued Mar. 21, 1961. The '925 patent discloses a container attachment adapted for the neck of a pop bottle which supports a ball of ice cream or ice above the carbonated beverage contained in the bottle. The container is spherical shaped and constructed in two hemispherical sections which are connected at a medial location of the sphere. The container has two similarly shaped and sized necks provided on diametrically opposing sides of the sphere. One neck inserts into the bottle, and the other neck accommodates the mouth of a person. The necks are hollow to provide fluid access to and from the sphere chamber. In this manner, when the user tips the bottle up, the beverage flows in the first neck, around the ice cream or ice, and out the second neck into the users mouth.
The container attachment of the '925 patent has several drawbacks. First, the input neck is diametrically opposed on the sphere from the output neck. This is disadvantageous because a user must tip the bottle near vertical to receive any liquid through the centralized neck portion provided for the user's mouth. If the container neck is not adequately secured within the bottle, the container attachment can become loose or fall out of the bottle causing the soda pop to spill all over the user.
Another drawback of the container disclosed in the '925 patent is that there are no vents or air holes provided in the spherical chamber apart from the two hollow necks. This significantly impairs the flow of the beverage. The absence of these vents is dictated by the spherical shape which channels the liquid (when the bottle is tipped upward) to the neck portion adapted for a user's mouth. If a vent was positioned at or near this neck, it would allow the beverage to leak from the container and spill onto the user.
A third drawback of this container is that the liquid always comes into contact with a large part of the ice cream surface area as a result of the central, diametrically opposing placement of the two necks on the sphere-shaped container. This results in an increased melt rate as the warmer liquid flows across most of the frozen ice cream surface.
This invention provides a mixing cap for housing ice cream or other edibles which is adapted for use with a mug or soda pop can. The cap of this invention eliminates the drawbacks discussed above with respect to the '925 patent.